Carbon Paste Electrodes for Antibiotic Electrochemical Quantification: State of the Art

Antibiotics are used primarily in human and veterinary medicine to treat various infections. They have also found applications in animal farms and aquaculture as growth promotors, with the aim of increasing food production. Their uncontrolled use can lead to increased bacterial resistance to antibiotics as well as other adverse effects. Unfortunately, these can reach and accumulate in the environment. Thus, their sensitive and selective detection from various matrices, using inexpensive and portable instruments, is becoming an increasing necessity. Electrochemical techniques are a viable alternative in this regard, and carbon paste electrodes (CPEs) present electrochemical and economic characteristics that recommend them as versatile devices for this purpose. Therefore, this paper is a comprehensive synthesis of the information presented in the last 10 years in the literature regarding CPEs developed for the analysis of antibiotics in different samples. Methods for obtaining different modified CPEs and their performances in detecting compounds belonging to different classes of antibiotics were discussed and priorities for future development were suggested. Through this review, researchers interested in the (electro)analysis of antibiotics will gain information about the advantages and limitations of using CPEs and the efforts made in the last decade to improve their performance.